This is just amazing.
Outstanding, you must read the whole thing.
A beautiful tribute and so many little bits of this resonated with me.
Faith. Changing lives. Respect for the disabled, and being someone who strange things happen to.
I really resemble that remark!
"Professor Reuven Feuerstein who died aged 92 in April 2014 was one of
the great child psychologists of the world, a man who transformed lives
and led severely brain-damaged children to achievements no one else
thought possible. I knew him and admired him, and I was recording a
tribute to him when his son told me a wonderful story."
"Feuerstein had been working with a group of Native American Indians
and they wanted to show their gratitude. So they invited him and his
wife to their reservation. They were brought into the Indian chief’s
wigwam where the leaders of the tribe were sitting in a circle in full
headdress.
As the traditional welcome ceremony began, the professor, an orthodox
Jew from Jerusalem, was overwhelmed by the incongruity."
"He turned to
his wife and said to her in Yiddish, “What would my mother say if she
could see me now?!” To his amazement, the Indian chief turned to him and
replied in Yiddish: “And what would she say if she knew I understood what you just said!”
"There are certain people around whom strange things happen and Reuven Feuerstein was one."
And this is just an exquisite paragraph.
May we all merit such a description of our lives, how beautiful.
Really, Rabbi Sacks has a way with words.
"He dedicated his life to children with disadvantages, some physical –
autistic, brain-damaged and Down Syndrome children – and others cultural
or social. His methods have been adopted in more than 80 countries. He
was a genius, a magician, a small, slight man with twinkling eyes.
Children opened up to him like flowers in the sun."
Children opened up to him like flowers in the sun.
That is one of the most magnificent lines I've read in a long time.
Yishar Koach, Rabbi Sacks.
